


What Never Was and Never Shall Be

by RoryWinchester



Series: Threads of Dreaming [1]
Category: Constantine (Comic), Constantine (TV), The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Could be either comics or tv show canon, Dreams vs. Reality, Gen, Or not, could be read as ChasJohn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 17:27:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3858850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoryWinchester/pseuds/RoryWinchester
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daniel finds that he needs to wrap up some loose ends, in his predecessors absence. Well... actually, he doesn't have to, but he should. One of those ends is John Constantine.</p>
<p>"I am Dream, of the Endless. It is enough."<br/>"No, it's not."</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Never Was and Never Shall Be

John was beginning to hate his job. He couldn’t even smoke without attracting someone or some thing , it seemed, nowadays. The shiver of deja-vu that accompanied the sight of this stranger didn’t help his temper. But John didn’t know anyone like this man. He was slender, and tall, and that fit the bill for a lot of John’s spookier acquaintances, but supernatural beings did like  colour . Even if it was only black. But this man - this boy, really - standing in front of him was pale as a sheet, and his hair and clothes were just as white. He wore clothes that  would have been normal, were they any other colour, but John got the impression that behind the pale civilian clothing, lay something more. But he shook it off, favoring a cold, dead stare over a greeting. For several moments, he was met with more of the same. And then the strange boy spoke.

“Smoking is bad for you.”

John laughed at that. How could he not? “You’ve got to be bloody kidding, mate. Who’re you with, one’a them health thingies? Because you’re maybe the tenth person to say that to me this week.”

“It is a message passed to me from my sister. She wishes, rather in earnest, not to see you again.”

“Know me well, then, does your sister?” John asked, somewhat curious, now.

“She knows you all too well. And you know her all too well, John Constantine, even if you’ve only met her once, and never in memory.”

John’s blood ran cold, and he stamped his now-spent cigarette under his heel. “You know my name.”

“I have been informed that this is common knowledge amongst magical folk.” The pale boy shrugged. John scoffed.

“I wouldn’t quite say common.” Yes, he would. “Who the hell are you?”

“I am Dream, of the Endless. I am told that we have met.” This little boy said it with such utter conviction, John almost wanted to believe him. But, he couldn’t. Morpheus was dead - he remembered that much. He remembered that he made a speech about him being dead, but he can’t remember what was in it. But that was okay. Men forget, in waking hours.

His laughing turned into an ugly smokers cough, and he was practically doubled over with it, Not-Morpheus rubbing his back. See, that was another thing the Prince of Stories never would have done, touching him. Touching  anyone . Wasn’t really his gig. But this touch felt exactly how John always figured Morpheus’s would have felt, cold but not the sort of cold John was used to, not the cold hand of the friend he had to bury. It was cold in a way that a dream of a desert was, because you knew there should be warmth there, but you didn’t feel heat at all. “Dream of the bloody fucking Endless,” John finally gasped, “you gotta be  kidding me, mate. Dream is  dead .”

“But you still dream at night. So does everyone else, I can assure you.” 

“His realm can take care of itself. Destruction’s did.” John knew he sounded like a petulant child, but he didn’t  care , because he was being  lied to, by someone trying to imitate Dream of all people, and it burned him deeply.

This boy who claimed to be Dream slid his hands behind his neck, and they came away holding a green pendant. It was cheap costume jewelry, a plastic emerald on a rubber cord, but it caught the light of the park’s dwindling sunset like a fine gem. Still, John was less than impressed.

“So you’ve got a bloody toy. So  what ?”

Not-Morpheus held the gem up, letting it catch the light. “Do you know what is unique about gems and prisms, John Constantine?”

John snorted. “That’s a piece of fucking plastic, mate. Nothing unique about it.”

“On the contrary, it is unique in all of the realms. But it shares something with every gem, manufactured or otherwise. Do you see the way it catches the light? Every facet is a different part of the same. But they are all part of one thing. That is what I am, an aspect of a whole. And when I pass, as I most likely will, I have no doubt a new aspect will take charge.” 

“I’ll hand it to you, mate, you sure know how to go off on tangents like Morpheus.” Somewhere, deep in his bones, John knew that it was true, But he was incredibly skeptic, and incredibly stubborn. It came with the job.

“I am not Morpheus. I am Dream, of the Endless. It is enough.”

Almost on instinct, John smacked the necklace out of the boys hand. “No it’s  not ! Don’t you get it, you thick, thick child! He’s  dead !” This looked bad. He was screaming at a younger man, apparently with some connection to a dead man, in the middle of a public park. But he didn’t care, he was so beyond caring. He had not allowed himself to grieve for Morpheus. He would not weep for a man he was not even sure was gone, not even sure had been real in the first place. But  this , this was too real. It was scream or cry, and John had learned the hard way at a young age that crying gets you nowhere.

The boy looked sad, and a little bit scared. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Then why come?” John’s voice was trembling. He hated it. He’d hardly known Morpheus, it was true, but he liked to think he knew him as well as a human can know one of the Endless. But apparently it wasn’t enough. He tilted his face down, unwilling to look.

Dream - and John supposed he was Dream, a facet like he had said, no matter how much he wanted to disbelieve it - pressed a cool hand to John’s face, bringing their eyes together. “My predecessor had many friends. Friends who had a hard time believing he was gone.” And  that , that right there was downright laughable, the idea of Dream having friends. But John couldn’t laugh. If he laughed, he would start crying. “They deserve closure. And you are no different.”

You are no different . Bullshit. John didn’t deserve anything, anything, anything… but Dream wouldn’t know that. Not yet. But it was what broke him, what set him sobbing. Dream held John, and wasn’t  that trippy, but right now John could care less. Instead, he just let himself cry into the other’s arms.

 

* * *

John woke up, tangled in sheets and with tears still on his face. Chas was leaning over him, concerned. “Are you alright, John?”

"M’fine, luv.” John scrubbed a hand over his face, wiping away the tears. “Don’ worry about me.”

“Bad dream?”

“Not  bad . Certainly not  good , but not bad. It was…”

“It was what?” John thought. He let the words tumble around his head for a few long moments before answering.

“Real.”


End file.
